


A Course to the Ocean

by ryfkah



Category: Ivanhoe - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/pseuds/ryfkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To his deep disappointment, Brian de Bois-Guilbert is not quite as dead as he had imagined himself to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Course to the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silverfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfox/gifts).



Brian de Bois-Guilbert opened his eyes after dying, and saw a familiar face. 

This but barely surprised him. “Why then, De Bracy,” he rasped, “art thou also slain? Thy Christian superstitions served thee little, after all, if all that they earned thee was a hell shared with me.”

De Bracy only laughed. “Too quick to grieve, Templar – or to gloat – whichever it is that was. Not slain, not I, thank God! Nor you neither, thanks to God or the devil as you like.” As Brian stared, De Bracy went on: “What witches' spell were you under? The Templars think you dead. Were it not for your Saracen servants, you'd have woken in a crypt, as they say is true of that Saxon vassel Athelstane.” 

“My servants?” Brian heaved himself up on one elbow, his rage all the greater for the labor it took him. The gray haze around him was resolving into rough-hewn stone walls, and straw from the pallet below prickled his back through the cloth of his tunic. He felt weak as a babe, and the pulsing of his heart brought fading pain with every beat, but there was no denying that he lived. “Wretches! What have they done? I asked for a true poison!” 

“Well, it seems you did not receive it.”

“I'll have their heads!”

De Bracy regarded him. “This almost surpasses belief,” he remarked. “First, that you, the proudest Templar who ever bore the cross, would choose a death before battle; and second, even stranger, that your slaves would spare you from it – was it not you who warned me that your Turkish captives would deploy a poison without the slightest hesitation?”

“This is no kindness they have done me,” answered Brian, in tone of deep bitterness. “It is a revenge upon me – it was death I asked of them! They know well how insupportable life will be to me now!” And then he repeated, “I'll have their heads!”

“That you will not,” said De Bracy, “for they have gone with their freedom – and with my good coin and blessing too, for bringing you hence, and having heard your tale I would not take it back. Villain you may be, Sir Brian, heretic most certainly, a supreme irritant to god-fearing men and infidels alive; yet still, I'll admit I would account your death something of a waste. But tell me,” he went on, in as light a tone of before, “the second marvel accounted for, the first yet remains. You were always a moody soul; still, if there exists in England a man I'd have thought less likely to take his own life, and that before crossing spears with Wilfred of Ivanhoe –”

But he was not allowed to finish, for Brian sat bolt upright, his weathered face blanching yet paler. “By God – De Bracy, Rebecca! What has become of Rebecca?”

“The Jewess? I know not.” De Bracy gave a slight, careless shrug of his shoulders. “They say she disappeared from Templestowe --” 

“Disappeared! Then not dead? Not burned?”

“Nay. Your death, as they thought it, was accounted divine judgment –” De Bracy started, and looked at him again, with a changed eye. “And was that your reason, then?” 

Bois-Guilbert glared as if to repel further inquiry by the power of his glance alone, but De Bracy was not to be put off. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “I see it now. You knew yourself to be in the wrong in the affair of the Jewess. Yet to refuse to fight, at the last, and publicly proclaim yourself in thrall to a woman who spurned you – that, your pride would not allow. So rather than show yourself conquered by a mortal, you craft a show of divine retribution – you cheat Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the Grand Master, and all the gathered worthies, and make God the butt of the jest! By my faith, Templar –” De Bracy sat down with a thump on his chair next to the bed, and, as if he knew not what else to do, began to laugh. “I knew you'd the hubris for it, but in truth, I hadn't thought you to have the humor.” 

Bois-Guilbert turned his face to the wall. The trial recurred to him, dimly, as if through a great wall of smoke – Rebecca's final rebuff; the great wooden pyre; the sound of his own voice, hollow and terrible in his ears. The hours, stretching on, awaiting a champion who seemed destined never to come; the day that could not end in anything other than fire. It had felt unreal to him then, and still felt so now. He had seen a way of ending the nightmare, that was all. Death before dishonor, death before defeat! He had said that to Rebecca, and had meant it. The Turkish captives had promised it would be quick as God's thunderbolt. But they had lied, they had lied, and now – 

“And now,” said De Bracy, in an echo of his own thoughts, “the jest turns on its maker, and Bois-Guilbert is a dead man who draws breath. Well! What will you do now?”

“I know not,” answered Brian, bleakly. “I have lost all I valued – my position, my ambitions – I can no longer even lay claim to the name of Bois-Guilbert.”

“And yet,” returned De Bracy, “if you have lost, also have you gained. A Knight Templar relinquishes not only worldly goods, but worldly will; he swears obedience, and abandons his own destiny for the glory of the Order. And you – you are not a man who easily relinquishes his will. Tell me that you have never chafed at this, and see if I believe it.”

Brian was silent.

“The yoke that binds you is cut,” De Bracy went on, “and freedom awaits. Is there nothing of value in this?”

“ _She_ scorned to take freedom without honor,” said Bois-Guilbert, and there was no mistaking whom he meant. 

“Well, indeed. Not for nothing do my fellows name themselves the Free Companions; and we have, I think, no little share in glory, and no less a reputation as men of chivalry for all that we keep our freedom.” De Bracy glanced at the other, then. “Indeed, you would be welcome among us. In our company no man need give his name nor his loyalty, nor indeed aught but his strong arm, and that where well paid. Your arm, at least, I can vouch for.”

“An arm!” echoed Bois-Guilbert, and let out a harsh bark of laughter that shot pain through his aching chest. “Then am I reduced to that! – I, who might have been Grand Master of the order of Templars, and ruled over the fate of kings!”

“It was you yourself who threw away that chance,” said De Bracy, coolly. “Bemoan your fate if you will; myself, I begin to find your belated regrets somewhat tedious.” 

Bois-Guilbert's eyes flashed. “I've no regrets, De Bracy! I'll live with my choice.”

“An improvement, I think,” said De Bracy, “upon dying with it.” 

Bois-Guilbert was silent then. Regrets? – no, he did not, he could not; he had always been too proud for regret. That at least had not changed, though everything else that he had thought certain was shifting like the sands of Jerusalem. He had built his soul of iron, and thought it strong; Rebecca had shown it to him as the rusted thing it was. He had not thought that having only himself to rely on would strike such horror in him – but then, he had always known before who that self was. 

He looked up again to De Bracy. “Why?” he demanded, with an abrupt change of countenance. “Why would you aid me? There is risk to you if I am discovered; the Templars would hold you an enemy, and their might is without measure --”

“Well! Not so much in England anymore,” said De Bracy. “You are behindhand on the news, I fear – but more on that subject later –”

“Moreover,” continued Bois-Guilbert, ignoring the interruption, “my character is familiar to you – you know well the abuses I have perpetrated, the deceits I have not scorned. You're a pleasure-seeking popinjay, De Bracy –”

“I thank you!” said De Bracy.

“-- but a Christian nonetheless, and a man of chivalry. Why risk yourself for me?”

“You did not abandon me at Torquilstone,” answered De Bracy, “and would have risked yourself in my rescue, had I not bade thee fly. For a friend and a comrade, shall I do less? I will aid thee, if thou wilt allow it; if not, very well, I shall leave thee.” 

Brian glanced away. It was he who had flung the words comrade and friend at De Bracy before, half in jest and half in accusation; he had not known then how to mean them. It took him near a minute of the clock for him to compose himself, and return the other's gaze. “Where is it that you've brought me?”

“This is the Maison Dieu, in Dover. Your illness provided an excuse for us to take the guise of pilgrims – a blessing for which I thank you, as the constable of Dover Castle is one of John's men, and that ill-starred prince looks none too kindly on me today. Tomorrow we take ship for Calais, and the service of Philip of France.”

“The Templars, you said, are broken in England.”

“Broken and banished. Malvoisin stands accused of treason, and will die by Richard's command. Do you grieve for your comrades?”

“Nay,” answered Brian fiercely, “I rejoice,” and discovered that it was true; whatever loyalty had still remained in him to the Order which he had hoped once to rule, the poison had burnt away. “I could almost find in myself a gladness to be alive, would that life last but long enough to see every one of those slaves to monastic superstition dealt with thus.” He paused. “And Rebecca – her whereabouts, you said --”

“Unknown.” De Bracy leaned back against the wall of the room. “Would you still seek her?”

“She thinks me dead.” 

“If she learned what you have done for her --”

Brian gave another painful laugh. “That will mean nothing; she never asked for it.” She had refused, always, to give her love as the payment to a debt. If there was a way to her heart now – and there must be a way, some way – but he could not see it from where he was. “I offered her the world, but all she requested of me was peace. Living, I could not grant her that gift. Did I know where she was, I still – I do not think that I could rest. Perhaps she was wise to disappear.” 

De Bracy was silent for a moment; then his mouth slanted upwards. “You betray yourself, Sir Brian.”

“What?”

“Your comrades would not have credited it – indeed, I barely believe it myself – but you're a romantic to the core. Fear not!” He leaned forward and patted him on the hand, as a grandfather might pat a child. “Your secret lies safe with me.”

Sir Brian glared at him, seething. “Will you never cease jesting?”

“Heaven forfend! If it irritates you, you need only bear it another day.”

“Indeed no,” said Brian, “if I am to go with thee to France, I will needs bear it every day.”

“Then go with us you will?”

“If only to be sure that when I am recovered, I'm in position teach thee to think better on thy ill-considered merriment.” 

“We will see,” answered De Bracy, “who is the student, and who the teacher. But I will be glad of thy company, Sir Brian – or whomever it is that you may be now.”

“That I cannot answer today,” said Brian – said the knight who could no longer be Brian, who did not know who he was; but who, living, would have to become somebody. Somebody free was a start. Somebody with a comrade who valued him enough to merit his life worth the saving – that was a start too. 

“Let me sleep, De Bracy,” he said, “I am weary.” He closed his eyes. Tomorrow, the crossing to France; tomorrow, another life.


End file.
